Posted on 05/11/2005 9:06:58 AM PDT by pitinkie
Your predictions of doom every fortnight are bound to come to some sort of fruition eventually. Congratulations to you and your looney doom friends.
This is the most reasonable response I have seen. This was a 100 mph Cessna 150 for heaven's sake! It carries maybe 50 pounds in addition to the passengers. An F-16 can smoke it in seconds. For the authorities to go ape over such a trivial matter means only one of two things: 1. They are absolutely PARANOID about airplanes, or 2. something is afoot and any trivial matter must be blown into a major case because of the intelligence conditions. My concern is that the first source is irrational and quite harmful to the economics and progress of the country. The second source is one I had not considered.
Would love for you to be right in many respects.
Alas, you are not.
Stay tuned. You'll find out plenty soon enough.
Whether you'll have the horse sense to change your tune in time will be a different issue.
Amazing all of it as it comes live on air:)
Exactly, all you have is a blip on the radar, with or without a beacon response. (If the transponder was on at all, it probably was squawking code 1200 (Visual Flight Rules, not under air traffic control)). It could easily have been an old airliner, such as a DC-6 or Convair 240/340/440/580, or even an old DC-3. Any of those could carry a significant payload.
More likely they'll make it illegal to run any faster than a 300 lb man can run.
It might not, but it did get the F-16s up there in time to shoot down the aircraft if it appeared to be a genuine threat. It serves as a trigger to set the hounds loose. You can't investigate every airplane in the sky, there are way too many of them.
Would a real terrorist refrain from attacking because the air space is restricted?
Of course not, but it would make him a target, and give time to alert defensive systems. Automated systems can easily be set to alert the operator if they move into restricted air space.
This guy took off from Pennsylvania. How large an area would you ban private aircraft from?
The more is better fallacy. Placement counts for even more than the amount of explosives. In the center of a building is better than somewhere outside. A smaller amount of explosives set off inside the building, after the manned cruise missile hits it, would be more likely to bring the building down than a larger amount set off 50 or 100 feet outside of it.
Brings to mind Tim Conway skit with the little old man who did everything with tiny, tiny steps and very, very slow movements. Can just see Tim "running" out of the capitol.
Do you have any idea how many airfield are within 100 miles of DC? Lots. The biggest threat is still an airliner diverted or perhaps a nominally "air cargo" aircraft, that files for someplace nearby, Baltimore maybe, or even Dulles, and then diverts. If there is a CAP (combat air patrol) airborne, they'll be able to get to it fast enough. If they have to scramble, like the NORAD spokesman just said on TV that they did today, it might be too late, but it might not as well. DC ANG F-16s sitting strip alert at Andrews are pretty darn close. If they are cocked and ready, with flight crews only a few feet away, or even in the cockpit (presuably in covered shelters of some sort) they can get airborne in under a minute. This guy got to within 3 miles, but I haven't heard how far out he was when they scrambled.
At one time they wouldn't tell the crews it was a drill until they were airborne, with live nuclear weapons in the bomb bay! Then they started telling them just before they moved onto the active runway.
Missile launch are, or so I'm told, never told its for real, unless of course it is. (Baring the odd accident when the real message to get ready to launch is accidentally sent instead of the practice one. Happened at least once that I know of).
The one will overtake the other in a big way and pass it up.
I have no doubt that they can swap off and keep it in sight and in their control. I suspect they've thought of that. But I also think their stall speed is more than that of a Cessna. I could certainly be wrong.
How'd you like to look up and see that Blackhawk squating over you? Although I suspect they pulled up alongside, with the door gunner waving hello with a minigun. :)
You think maybe the guys in the F-16s might be able to tell? Might even have some binoculars up there with them? And of course the bigger it is, the farther away you can see it.
I sort of doubt they were all "no contact". Those F-16s intercepted well out from 3 miles. The blackhawk probably did as well.
Didn't realize that at the time I commented. Your points are well taken
Since when? I'm thinking post-9/11 right?
I just can't believe how some of our elected officials behaved during this emergency. They needed a detailed explanation, they needed a protocol? Give me a break!
I'm one of two "wardens" for the floor in the building where I work. If there is a fire, for example, it's my duty to alert everyone to evacuate. I'm going to tell my co-workers to leave and if necessary, point them to the emergency exits (although they should know where they are since we've had enough fire drills). I'm not going to have time to give anyone a detailed explanation, or find them a way to leave so they won't have to go out with the peons.
To his credit, I understand that Harry Reid had some nice words for the Capitol police and others who evacuated him and the rest of our overpaid, underworked congresspeople. The rest of the pompous a$$ whiners ought to be ashamed of themselves.
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